In many types of communication networks, including wireline and wireless networks, detection and management of congestion is used to improve the performance of the communication network. The conventional basis for detecting congestion in a wireless network, such as a Long Term Evolution (LTE) wireless network and other types of wireless networks, is resource utilization of the wireless network. In LTE networks, for example, the air interface utilization of the LTE network is typically used for detecting congestion in the LTE network, since the air interface capacity is normally the limiting factor for communications in LTE networks. In a cell of an LTE network, for example, the average Physical Resource Block (PRB) utilization on the forward link for the cell reflects the cell loading condition of the cell. For a 10 MHz LTE network, there is a total of 50 PRBs which can provide, on average, an average aggregate downlink throughput of 12 Mbps per cell. Thus, the conventional basis for detecting congestion in an LTE cell is the PRB utilization of the LTE cell.